Hi there! At the start of the pandemic, I created this newsletter as a space to share resources and talk about things that we were all thinking and feeling. As we begin a new year, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how I could mould that intention for where you are at right now. If you have 5 minutes to spare, could you please help me by filling this anonymous survey?
Through the course of my late teens, I was in a relationship where I perpetually had one question – am I being thought of or forgotten?
I would always look for proof of one or the other. Did he text me or ignore my call? Did he tell me I was beautiful or talk about his friends? Did he say he loved me or was he thinking of someone better?
This paranoia was conceived in a relationship where my boyfriend continually recited what was lovable in young women, and what was not. I was compared to others, asked to change, directed to be more of this and less of that.
Eventually, I got out of the relationship. But the questions continued.
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From the ages of 21 to 24, I joined and quit four colleges.
I’ve written more about this in my zine, where I talk of the subjects I tried to get a Master’s in and the reasons I told myself while leaving each course and college – poor choice of subject, flailing mental health, right place-wrong time.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about why I even joined these courses to begin with. Just like my reasons for leaving, there were plenty for joining – parental pressure, a search for stability, looking for any path forward, and a desire to fit in among my peers, to name a few.
During this time of joining and quitting schools, I’d once again trapped myself between binaries that could neither hold nor relieve me. Do I pick this course or wilt away in a room for the rest of my life? Do I quit right now or keep failing for another 3 months? Do I decide a future I could grow into or fade into oblivion as I keep letting choices be made for me?
After three years of vollying between these options, a friend referred me for a vacancy at her workplace. I got the job and was good at it. I slowly began to realize that I would never have found my answers within the curriculum of a course. I was looking for expansiveness, a life filled with time, space, and possibilities.
Now that I had something close to such a life, I breathed in its openness. I promised myself to remember that this existed and that no matter what, I could find my way back here.
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I’d like to say that that was the last time I placed myself within the chokehold of such black and white thinking, but that would be a lie. For me, these false gods have continued to crop up, in large and small dilemmas, in life decisions and daily choices. I’ve spent days, weeks, even months at a stretch looking for exits.
At the start of this year, I could sense it happening again.
I ended 2021 with a clear idea of the projects I wanted to work on this year. There was one particular project I had been planning for months, filling pages and pages with the whys, hows, and what ifs. I’d drawn structures and made blueprints. I had the tools and skills to work on it. Despite it all, at the start of 2022, I found myself paralyzed.
No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to move in the direction I’d mapped out. Once again, I began to feel the questions gathering around me and the desire to push and destroy them rising from within.
But 15 years in, I am exhausted, spent from a decade of constraining and destroying myself.
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I now see why I do this so much. When important aspects of my future appear unclear, I reach for binaries to feel safe within. Narrowing the unknown into two options is my attempt to quell an anxious, restless mind.
Even evidently false binaries are tempting for the catharsis that breaking through them promises. The emotional release of that effort can be a powerful distraction from the vagueness of what’s before me.
This fear and anxiety around particular uncertainties feels like an inevitable part of living in a world that asks us to quantify and measure every part of ourselves and our lives. From our worthiness to be loved to the potential of our talent, we are made to believe that if we don’t act fast enough and figure out the answers soon enough, we will lose our chance to be seen, accepted, to have been here at all.
I’ve spent so many years grasping at wisps of myself, trying to gather it in my palms and trap it somewhere that everyone can see. I was here, look, I was here.
But the irony of these closed spaces is that they’ve only ever led to time-consuming, energy-draining pursuits. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to do something different.
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I told myself that I would not spend time trying to figure out if this project is for me or if I am simply afraid, if the time is right or my approach is wrong. I looked away from the hovering questions and envisioned another image – clearings I’ve occasionally come across.
While binaries protect us from facing the nebulous, they also restrict us from accessing the expansive. If I could believe that beyond the mist and smog, there was wide green pastures, free for the grazing, I probably wouldn’t reach for my questions as much. The work then, would be to eliminate the voices that tell me to stay away from the openness.
To this end, I deactivated my Facebook account and uninstalled my Instagram app. It was a small step to begin with, a social media hiatus. My new hope is that removing the expectations, instructions, and rules dictated by this world will allow me to see and hear what I need to.
I am learning that we do not have to perpetually keep defining our Big Problems and finding ways to defeat them. Instead, there is value making room for ourselves to recall the vastness of life and our inner worlds. For it is far more likely that in this quest, this meditation, our true paths will be revealed.
💌
Love,
Soumya
Reflection prompts ✍
☆ What are some binary questions you currently hold? (Is it this or that, should I do this or that, am I this or that, etc.)
◇ What does not knowing the answers to these mean for you? What do you think not knowing them says about you?
♡ If you were to surrender these questions right now, what are some possible good outcomes? What are some positive things this would say about you?
Read & Listen 📚
Use forgetting to tell a story
Have we forgotten how to read critically?
Don’t call yourself moody. Name each of your personalities instead.
Confronting yourself on the page with writers Jessica Ciencin Henriquez & Katie Dalebout
Dissecting Cringe Culture & more with Jameela Jamil & Natalie Wynn
Current Jam 🎶
This spiritual punk song has been a morning staple for the past few months. I can’t get enough of this unlikely duo!
Thank you for reading! 💞
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